Nine Lives
by onmytoes
Summary: The new barista at Jakku Java is going to give Ben Solo a god damn heart attack. (Multi-chapter coffeeshop AU.)


The new barista at Jakku Java is going to give Ben a god damn heart attack.

The first time he notices her, like actually notices her, it's a Tuesday morning. He is sitting in his usual spot by the window, trying to finish up his paperwork before his shift at the hospital, when he hears … chanting. No — counting. He looks up, irate, and sees a small crowd surrounding two people in the corner.

It's two of the baristas — Finn, who's been working there long enough that Ben remembers his name, and the scrawny new girl who started working in the back a few weeks ago. Their fingers are plugged up to their noses and their cheeks are comically swollen.

"118, 119 … That's two minutes!" someone in the cluster around them shouts.

The girl stamps her feet and crushes her eyes shut. Only then does it occur to Ben that the two of them are engaged in, of all things, a _breath holding contest_.

It would be anxiety-inducing for a regular human. But as a doctor, watching all this go down made Ben's skin itch. He came here to relax, dammit, not watch some college kids who _know better than this_ pass out on a tile floor. He turns his head abruptly, resolving not to let them break his focus.

"130, 131, 132 — "

They're going to kill themselves, the idiots. He scowls over at them. The girl's face is red enough that he is sure she is going to pop a vein, and Finn looks like he is starting to cry. He feels the muscles in his legs tense, poised to put a stop to it. Honestly, they deserve whatever the hell they get, but if one of them passes out then he'll be obligated to _do_ something about it, and he really isn't up to showing up to work with a couple of broken baristas.

Mercifully, Finn gives up, heaving a horrible, mangled breath. Ben feels some measure of relief, expecting the girl to follow suit — only she doesn't. Another second passes, and then another five, and she continues holding her breath, practically swaying on her feet —

His heart lurches in his throat, and just then she finally surrenders, smirking even as she starts heaving wretched breaths back into her lungs. The cluster cheers their victor, and Finn shamefacedly hands her a five dollar bill.

"Morons," Ben mutters under his breath.

But it's over. He turns back to his paperwork, his legs easing back into his chair, when out of the corner of his eye he sees the girl jump on top of the couch. When he turns she is still red-faced but triumphant, holding the five dollar bill in her hands.

"Who's next?" she cries.

That's it. He's got _way_ too much to worry about to spare his precious time on some dumb coed with abnormally large lungs. Ben grabs his briefcase, shoves the paperwork inside, and leaves before the second round can begin.

* * *

When he comes in the next day at his usual time, the girl is up at the register. His irritation is instant. Finn and Poe have his drink order memorized and usually have it ready to go before he gets to the front of the line, but now he's going to have to sit here and wait for it on a day when he's already late.

He considers just leaving, but the idea of not getting his caffeine fix is too depressing to handle. Besides, the line moves quickly. In another minute she is staring up at him under the brim of her Jakku Java baseball cap, all light-eyed and freckled and smirky.

He blinks, a little disarmed by the effect of her. "I'd like a — "

"Your order's ready," she tells him, shoving a cup into his hand.

"Oh."

He must look confused, because she shrugs. "Poe told me to have an espresso ready for some super tall dude in scrubs, so I'm guessing that's you?"

"Yes," he says, feeling oddly self-conscious. "That's me."

"Sweet."

She looks past him at the next customer, already poised for that automatic "haveagoodday," when he finds himself opening his big dumb mouth.

"You really shouldn't make bets holding your breath," he says. "It's dangerous."

Her brow furrows up at him. "What?"

"You could pass out. Hit your head. Suffer internal bleeding. Not to mention severely damage your lungs," he says. He felt armed knowing all this, but seeing the blatant amusement crease into the lines of her face, he suddenly feels like a nerdy fifth grader who just got his first pair of glasses.

"Noted," she says with a polite nod.

He stares at her for a second, his ears reddening, before nodding back and turning abruptly.

"But I would totally crush you at it. Just so you know."

The words make him cringe. When he looks back at her she flashes him a cheeky smile that he does not return, then moves onto the next customer. He is thinking about how god damn annoying she is long after his espresso is gone.

* * *

A few weeks later he is outside the coffee shop again when he hears the distinct slap of plastic wheels on cement; he looks up and sees a bunch of dumb college kids with skateboards, messing around near the steep stairs that come down from the pedestrian bridge above the coffee shop. One of the kids trips on the railing and falls and cusses as he skids; once Ben sees him get back up looking relatively unharmed, he turns his attention back to his phone screen.

"Hah!"

Only then does Ben see her, leaning against the brick wall with a limp-looking sandwich, evidently on her break and looking quite amused.

The fallen skateboarder glowers at her. "I'd like to see _you_ try."

She shrugs. Shoves the rest of the sandwich her mouth. "Sure," she says, her mouth still full as she walks over to the group of them.

Ben should just walk the hell away from this — he's hungry, and he's tired, and he just wants to sink into his table at the coffee shop and read his damn book in the ten minutes he has before some inevitable commotion summons him back to the hospital during his on-call shift.

And he does walk away. Or he starts to, at least. But as the girl extends her arm out for the kid to hand her the skateboard and then starts sprinting nimbly up the stairs with it, he finds his pace slowing to a halt.

"You ever done this before?" one of the kids calls, half-mocking, half-concerned.

The girl shrugs. "What's the worst that could happen?"

She's kidding. She has to be.

"She's not gonna do it," says one of the kids dismissively, echoing Ben's thought.

"Boo!" another one yells.

"I have to finish my sandwich, you punks," she answers back.

She chews, swallows, then backs up quite a few feet, setting the skateboard on the ground and poising herself. Even then Ben is sure she isn't going to do it — even the kids egging her on weren't trying the full railing — but in the next she kicks her foot off the ground and she's off with heedless kind of speed, her entire skinny body leaping into the air.

Oh, Jesus. He's going to watch the barista die.

Only she doesn't. He hears the scrape of wood on metal, and she's _flying —_ so spectacularly that for a second his awe distracts him from just how colossally stupid she is being. He thinks she must have hustled them, that there's no way she hasn't done this before, and then —

"Shit, shit, shit!"

She's _laughing_ as she goes down. Ben is trying not to choke on his own panic and she's _laughing_ , mercifully falling to the right and getting caught in the bushes instead of the left, where she undoubtedly would have broken all of her god damn limbs on the concrete stairs. She rolls down the hill, still cackling as she pulls herself up, retrieves the skateboard, and gives a little bow; the kids below cheer, a genuine kind of cheer, and Ben's blood surges.

"Thank you, thank you," she says with a grin, pulling herself out of the brambles.

She is so busy mock-bowing that she doesn't even notice Ben stalking toward her until he has yanked the skateboard out of her hands. She blinks up at him, the smile faltering on her face, a tiny trickle of blood running down a scrape on her forehead.

He stands there stupidly for a moment. "Wear a god damn _helmet_ ," he tells her, shoving the skateboard back into the kid's arms with enough force that he stumbles back.

Nobody speaks, and after another beat he turns and stalks back down the stairs.

"Nice to see you too!"

* * *

The incidents start piling up after that. He can only figure the girl is a cat about to run out of her nine lives. One day he walks in on her doing a one-arm handstand on a chair. Another day she gets into another dumb bet with Finn over who can fit the most gum balls in their mouth. Yet another day a smoker puts a lit cigarette in the trash can, and she beats down the flames with her apron without so much as batting an eye, until her god damn _sweater sleeve_ catches on fire.

And she laughs. She's always fucking _laughing,_ doing stupid, reckless shit and grinning with that crinkly nose and those bright eyes like she's having a god damn ball while Ben is actively trying not to scream.

The solution is simple: he stops going to the coffee shop.

Okay, he doesn't stop entirely. But he's around enough that he has a sense for her schedule, and deliberately shows up when he knows she isn't going to be there. He doesn't see her for weeks, and his blood pressure finally returns to some semblance of normal, and he figures he'll just have to wait her out a few more weeks until she gets bored and quits like every other college kid who blows through Jakku Java and he can have his damn coffee shop back.

It's all well and good until Phas, a resident of his, corners him in the break room and all but forces him to join the rest of her crew for a New Year's Eve party. Ben refuses. He doesn't mind working, for one thing, and god knows that the hospital could use it — but then stupid Hux seizes the opportunity to outshine him by volunteering for his shift, and before Ben knows it he's at a nightclub full of sweaty, disgusting, highly-intoxicated _young_ people on the shittiest night of the year _._

"You are a young people," Phas reminds him when he says just that.

His grip is vice-like on his rum and coke. "Hardly."

"And this isn't a shitty night. Loosen up a little, will you?"

In his defense, he tries. He has two drinks. He even ventures onto the dance floor with Phas and some of the other people at the hospital for a few minutes. He might have even started enjoying himself, if it weren't for _her_.

He hears that laugh and he can feel that stress crick in his neck cropping up again before he even realizes who it's coming from. When he turns around, he doesn't see her at first — because she is on top of some guy's shoulders, her hands up in the air, screaming the words to whatever intolerably loud song is blasting through the floor of the club.

Of course. Of _course_. He tries to turn his head, but there she is in the periphery, swaying at a dangerous angle on top of this dude's shoulders. They're both clearly drunk off their rocker, or at least it seems this way from here, not that he _cares_ , except then he hears this little shriek and just _knows_ that it's hers and the blood is rushing in his ears and he's walking over and she's practically falling off of him and —

"Put her _down_."

The other man scowls at him. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Who the fuck am I, who the fuck are you?" Ben fires back.

The guy's face twists into a snarl, which is at once obscured by the girl's hand, which she is using to pat him. "It's okay, it's fine, put me down," she says. The guy obeys without taking his eyes off Ben, and the smiles up at him obliviously, thanks him for the ride, and then dismisses him with a wave.

"Well, look who it is! Overly tall doctor!" she shouts over the music. "I haven't seen you in ages."

"What the _hell_ is your problem?" Ben bursts before he can help himself. It's not just the shoulder stint, it's _weeks_ of biting his tongue and feeling his blood surge and his fucking hair probably going gray watching this girl's complete and utter disregard for her mortality. "Every time I turn around, you're getting into the _stupidest shit —"_

"Oh my gosh," she says with a laugh, looking a little baffled by him, "hold on, would you just relax and — "

"Relax? I'd _love_ to," he says through his teeth, "but how can I do that when every time I turn around you're holding the sharp side of a knife with your teeth, or doing backflips in the parking lot, or getting _tanked_ at a club on the most _dangerous_ night of the year — "

"Whoa," she says, cutting him off. "You think I'm tanked? I'm nineteen, overly tall friend. I'm the only sober one here."

He processes this, and then adds pettily, "Okay, so you're being an idiot sober, then."

To his surprise — and really, at this rate, it shouldn't be — she grins at him. "No, I'm being a life liver sober, which is more than I can say for you."

Chanting again. People calling out numbers. It's the breath holding contest all over again, except this time people aren't counting up, but down.

She takes the rum and coke from his hand, and he's about to yap at her for drinking underage, but instead of putting it to her lips she sets it back down on the bar. He stares at the drink for a moment, and then back at her; it's the first time he has ever seen her face look still, smiling lightly at him instead of laughing or making one of those ridiculous, open-mouthed grins of hers.

" _Thirty, twenty nine, twenty eight …_ "

And then she's tearing out of the club like a bullet, weaving and working her way through the crowd. He watches her, dumbstruck, thinking she is running away from him — but then she turns and sees he isn't following, and jerks her chin at him with this little unspoken invitation. Another few seconds later she is shoving open a door that he didn't even see, and they are spilling out into the alley, into the cold air.

"What're you — "

"Come on," she says.

There's a built-in ladder leading up to the roof, and she is scrambling up it; he doesn't know what possesses him, but he follows her, feeling the pulse of the music inside the club vibrating in the flimsy metal handles.

The chanting continues, getting louder, the whole city seeming to thrum with the anticipation.

"Why are we on the god damn roof?"

"It's the new year," she says, her eyes bright as she whips around to face him. "I'm not going to spend that shit _inside_."

He has no idea what the hell she means by that, when "inside" was perfectly fine and warm and socially acceptable to the rest of the humans they left behind, but she looks so earnest and hopeful and a little bit heartbreaking in that moment that she keeps his mouth shut.

" _Three, two, ONE!"_

And then the club erupts with noise beneath them, and light streaks across the sky, popping and crackling in their ears. She throws her hands up and lets out a happy little whoop as the fireworks shatter in the sky, swallowing each other up hole and fading into the night. He follows her eyes to them, feeling weirdly out of his own body — like he isn't Ben Solo for a moment, but someone else entirely. Someone who feels things differently, who looks at the world differently, who doesn't resent this girl for her very existence in the same ten feet of him.

He feels something warm on his cheek. It's over before he even realizes what's happening; when he looks over at the girl, he can see the reflection of the fireworks sparkling in her eyes. He doesn't say anything, staring back up at the sky, the ghost of her lips still burning into his cheek.

They stand there in silence for god knows how long, until the finale, until the fireworks obliterate the sky and there is nothing but smoke and cold and police sirens and drunk people stumbling all over the street. He turns to her to tell her they ought to get down, and only then does he see her haphazardly swinging her legs over the roof edge, easing herself back down on the ladder.

"By the way," she says, with another one of those grins he is starting to dread. "My name's Rey."

* * *

Somebody requested a coffeeshop AU, so HERE IT IS, FOLKS. As usual, I suck at one-shots, so this is going to be multi-chapter. I have too many feels to be contained in one chapter. Hit me up at heyloreylo on Tumblr if you have any prompts!


End file.
